By Nicole Precel
THE Commonwealth Government is set to spend millions on a new anti-bullying strategy, but education professionals say what is needed is extra resources.
The Method of Shared Concern aims to “negotiate” rather than punish students who are found to be bullies.
The approach has been used in anti-bullying programs in countries around the world including England, Spain and Finland.
The Federal Government is funding a $3 million pilot program in 160 schools around the country to find what methods are being used in schools and what works.
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard acknowledged there was not a one-size-fits-all solution to bullying, and the government aimed to provide teachers and school leaders with a range of tools to help them deal with bullying.
According to the Australian Covert Bullying Prevalence Study one in four Year 4–9 Australian students experience frequent or infrequent bullying.
Australian Education Union Victorian president Mary Bluett said the strategy was one already being implemented in some schools, but wouldn’t work as a response on its own.
“The idea behind it is a number of young people, particularly if they’re doing it for the first time, don’t necessarily understand the effect their actions are having on the victim,” she said.
“So it does help as part of a raft of responses to bullying.”
She did say it was becoming more difficult for teachers and schools with limited resources to properly counter the various types of bullying, which included cyber bullying and text messaging.
“Schools feel that they are being left with the sole responsibility of addressing bullying when in fact many children are mimicking behaviour they see in the community,” she said.
“It can be quite time-consuming and what it raises is whether or not it becomes a classroom teacher, or principal or whether or not there are additional resources put into schools to tackle the raft of responses that are needed to address bullying of different types,” she said.
Ms Bluett said it had also become more difficult to suspend and expel students.“Principals don’t suspend or expel students lightly and it’s professionally quite insulting,” she said.
